


the bullet's whistle

by amosanguis



Series: Episode & Movie Tags/AUs [26]
Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman (Movies 1989-1997), Batman - All Media Types, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Justice League (2017), Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Drabble Collection, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, some poetry bits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 14:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4483619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s okay, Bruce.”  (Lights flash.)  “It’s okay.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Batman Begins #1

**Author's Note:**

> \--Each drabble is unrelated.  
> \--Chapters are all canon compliant unless otherwise noted.

“It’s okay, Bruce.”  (Lights flash.)  “It’s okay.”

(“Mr. Wayne? Mr. Wayne!”

Bruce looks over his shoulder.

Lights flash.)

His father’s last words: “It’s okay, Bruce.  It’s okay.”

(Camera lights flash.  To Bruce, they look like guns.)

“It’s okay, Bruce,” his father says, as gun-cameras flash around him.  “It’s okay.”

Then – “Is this your father’s coat?”

Bruce recoils.

“Hey,” he says, “it’s okay.  I’m not gonna take it.”

Gun-cameras flash just beyond the glass and suddenly Bruce is wearing his father’s coat (“It’s okay, Bruce.  It’s okay.”) and the one man not holding a gun-camera says, “Hey, it’s okay, it’s okay.”


	2. Batman Begins #2

She says, “The man I loved never really came back at all.”  She says, “Maybe someday, when Gotham no longer needs Batman.”

And he wants to tell her that _Bruce Wayne_ isn’t the mask.  That he’s _real_.  That he could be whatever she wanted him to be.

But it would be a lie.

He knows it.  Rachel knows it.

So she leaves him standing in the ashes of his family’s home. 

She says, “Maybe one day” – but it’s a platitude that doesn’t even last the month.  It takes them that long to realize that Bruce will die in his suit.


	3. The Dark Knight #1

“Rachel talks about you all the time,” Harvey says, “you, you’ve known her her whole life!”

“Oh, not yet, sir,” Alfred says.

 

The words ring in his ears.  Later.  When he’s alone and there’s nothing but memory to fill the empty halls he walks.

 _Oh, not yet, sir_.

 

It was true until it wasn’t.  Until she was taken by the mechanations of a madman.  He wants to cry, wants to lay down on the floor and shout for the gods to give Bruce something better.  But Alfred is made of better things than that.

 

“Oh, not yet, sir,” he says.


	4. The Dark Knight #2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Double drabble  
> \--This chapter uses gender neutral pronouns (xe/xir)

_Hello, dearest one_.

 

There’s a voice in his head – first heard when he's splashed with his father’s blood and his mother’s tears; first heard when a scream and a gunshot were the same noise for an instant.

 

_Come along, princeling, the night is young yet and you’ve a lot to learn._

 

When Bruce was still small, xe was beautiful and soothing.  But when Bruce returns after seven years gone – xe is weak with sickness.

 

_Welcome back, dearest one.  How I’ve missed you, my princeling._

 

And it’s not until Bruce has fully realized himself as Batman, has watched as the shadows darken and hug him tight, does he realize who the voice belongs to.

 _My favorite son_ , Gotham whispers, _my dearest one_.

“This city is rotting,” Rachel had said, so many years ago – and now Bruce understands: Gotham _is_ sick, the criminals controlling the streets a virus in xir veins.

 

Slowly, he clears the sickness from Gotham; slowly xir voice becomes stronger.  And xe _sings_ once the Joker is locked away and mourns with him on the loss of Harvey Dent.

 _His was a beautiful soul_ , xe says, _I loved him._

 _He was_ , Bruce says, locking away his cape.  _He was._


	5. The Dark Knight Rises #1

It wasn’t about _not fearing death_ – it was about _wanting to **live**_. 

He thinks about Alfred, a steadying point in an unsteady world; about Blake, a young, bright-eyed boy wanting only to do right.  He thinks about Harvey and Rachel and Lucius.

He thinks about Gotham.  Dark and forbidding to the weak of mind and heart.  Bane thought he owned the darkness and the shadow – and that may have been true of _this_ prison’s darkness, _this_ prison’s shadow. 

But Bruce _is_ Gotham.  He alone fits into Gotham’s blackness and it is for him alone that xe adjusts.

Then Bruce jumps.


	6. Batman (1989) #1

Bruce slips quietly to his knees, lays two bright red roses down onto wet, black concrete.

In this narrow alley of blacks and grays, red was a color too often splashed here.  So when Bruce lays down the roses – he’s saying **_I remember you_** , he’s saying **_I’m still alive_** and **_I’ll find out who did this_** and **_I’m going to try to make sure no one else has to lay their own roses on a forgotten alley_**.

Bruce slips quietly to his knees, lays down the roses – the same red as his parents’ blood – and promises their ghosts their vengeance.


	7. Batman Returns #1

He grows up in the dark; a child of the shadow and shade and shallow waters of Gotham’s sewers.

 _Penguin_ is the only name he knows – given to him by people of the surface after his first venture up into the moonlight (never the sunlight – too bright, much too bright – taking away all the shadows in which he hid).

He hears the whispers, even in the deep underground, of the Batman.

 _Made of shadow_ , his friends whisper, _none see him ‘til it’s too late to run_.

Penguin can’t wait to meet him – even if it means stepping into the sun.


	8. Batman v Superman #1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Gender neutral pronouns.

Metropolis shivers and recoils, sends shockwaves across the harbor – making Gotham _scream_. 

Bruce’s hands go to his ears as he shoves himself out of his chair and away from his desk, his back hitting the wall; he’s screaming, too.

 

Bruce hadn’t heard Gotham since the Joker had taken Jason, Bruce blaming xer for creating such monsters.  But after Superman and Zod, after Bruce watches an entire building of _his people_ collapse – xhe starts talking to him again.

 

“Kill ‘em,” xhe whispers, twisting her roads just for him.  “Kill ‘em all.”

Before him, the harbor opens up, the _White Portuguese_ docked.


	9. Justice League (2017) #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It only takes half a second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--This was envisioned with the actors from the upcoming Justice Leave movie, so it's the only piece in this series that's not canon compliant. It alludes to Bruce's identity being revealed, but it's not explicitly stated and may be expanded on at a later date in a separate piece.  
> \--Bruce's POV, so it's a bit choppy.

It only takes half a second.

 

 

There’s smoke in his eyes and Flash screaming beside him, a rebar sticking out of his thigh – then the burning building’s coming down around them.

 

 

“Easy,” Clark says.

But Clark’s vision isn’t swaying, his stomach isn’t fighting to hurl up everything eaten in the past twenty-four, his body’s not screaming at him that _everything_ hurts and that _everything_ is wrong.

“Easy,” Clark says, as somewhere behind him – the Flash keeps screaming.

 

 

It only takes half a second – somewhere between the building falling and the rescue – but there’s a camera flash and no one notices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started to expand on this, but the story wound up going in a different direction in that it drops the identity reveal and focuses on Barry & Bruce's friendship. But, if you're interested, it's [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11089119).


	10. Batman Forever #1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _One Grayson, two Graysons, three Graysons flying through the air/The fourth Grayson with only six seconds to spare/Too late, too late – so say a prayer_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--Double drabble  
> \--Warning for poetry? Idk.  
> \--We are back to complying with canon.  
> \--For WanderingStudent, who requested something from _Batman Forever_ or _Batman and Robin_. I may still do something from B &R or maybe add another chapter from _Forever_ (I haven't watched these two movies in years, but I still found myself talking right along with them, lol, so thanks for that trip down memory lane).  
>  \--It's one in the morning, please forgive any mistakes.

_One Grayson, two Graysons, three Graysons flying through the air_  
_The fourth Grayson with only six seconds to spare  
_ _Too late, too late – so say a prayer_

 

The scent of sweat and fear and expensive perfumes is thick around him; choking.

“ _Harvey_ ,” Bruce shouts, though his voice was lost on the screams, “I’m Batman.”

 

Two-Face cackles and blood covers Bruce’s fists and there’s a fresh round of screaming that forces him to look – and then he watches as three bodies twist and turn and fall.

Then Two-Face is gone and Bruce is standing with Gordon, staring at the bodies in front of him.

“There were four,” he says to no one, then he looks up from where they’d fallen and he sees Dick.

 

Dick was so eager to get to Two-Face, so ready for revenge.  But Bruce knew that path – had seen what it’d done to others.  He’s sent more than a few vengeance-drunk people to Jim Gordon.

But he didn’t want to see that happen to Dick. 

So, he (eventually) holds out his hand, says, “Partners.”

 

_A little, bitter bird of broken wing_  
_Taken into the long, dark shadows by a bitter king  
_ _All together now – we so sing_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you, too, would like to make a request, please be polite about it (by that, I mean: don't make demands, just ask nicely).


	11. pre-Batman v. Superman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You can’t keep going like this,” Jason’s ghost says, its voice cutting deep and making Bruce flinch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Warning: alcoholism, canonical character death

His hands shake as he downs first one drink, then another, then another.

Screaming echoes all around him but without even a glance around, he knows no one else hears it.

He takes another drink.

His hands continue to shake.

 

In the morning, the tabloids’ll say that he lost his mind, that it was the pills and pressure.

And Bruce will read them all – the screen of his phone tremoring as he reaches for a bottle.

 

“You can’t keep going like this,” Jason’s ghost says, its voice cutting deep and making Bruce flinch.

 

Bruce shakes and reaches for his drink.


End file.
